Lifescapes

Sun Cookery

My new solar cooker, a Sun Oven. I'm learning a lot about the way the sun moves across the sky during the day, and how the temperature rises and falls with cloud cover. I've cooked rice, lasagna, and green beans; baked a loaf of bread and a cake.I always use the thin lasagna, which is easier to work with and tastes just as good (to us, anyway). It bakes perfectly in just under two hours, at a temperature of about 275.

The zucchinis are starting to bear, now that the weather has cooled off. I had plenty of extras (who doesn't?) so I baked a zucchini chocolate cake, with pecans. I used a recipe I found on the web--not only zukes from the garden but pecans from our last year's super harvest. The cake baked in the solar oven in just under three hours. Since I didn't have any powdered sugar, I made a sour cream frosting.

                                                                                                   
Book report. I've started on the next China Bayles--worked on the overall character set, central mystery plot, secondary plots, and started the first chapter. I wanted to get something into the computer before I leave this week for my class reunion in Illinois. I'm doing a couple of book talks and a signing. If you're in the area, you're invited, but please check with the library venues to see if there's still room.

The Tale of Briar Bank will be in the stores on Tuesday. If you'd like a signed copy, click on the link--your purchase through our website will benefit Story Circle. Many thanks to those of you who have ordered through SCN. Your book purchases help us do all kinds of good things that we couldn't do with out your support. Have you checked out our women's book review site lately? Something to be proud of! (If you've already ordered a book, it will be in the mail tomorrow. And I hope you enjoy the dragon!)

For those of you who missed the link, you can find my first post on growing medicinal herbs at Hen & Harvest. Part Two will be along in a couple of weeks. These are easy-to-grow, easy-to-use herbs, nothing at all exotic about them.

Reading note. Fairy tales are more than true; not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.--G.K. Chesterton, quoted in The Tale of Briar Bank.

Think about this, please: One in five U.S. presidents have died in office.

The fall garden (this is one of the three beds). The plants, left to right: Southern peas, snap beans, cabbages, English peas, carrots. I plant close, and will interplant as the season goes on. Our official first frost date here is Nov. 15, but that's been sliding in the past few years--last year, we got our first freeze on Dec. 10. It's possible that we'll have regular harvests through early December and likely (with row cover protection) we'll have spinach and other cold-hardy things through February. This week, we've been eating beans, Southern peas, and squash. I'm planning to add another 60+ square feet for the spring garden.

Potato tower. Somebody asked about this. It's a substitute for growing potatoes in a neat row, with soil hilled up as the plants grow taller--the way I learned to do it in my Illinois garden years ago. Here, I've made a container of hog wire, joined into a cylinder. I've planted the potatoes in about 10" of good compost at the bottom and will add compost and grass clippings as the plants grow taller. At harvest, instead of digging, I'll pull or dump the compost out and gather the potatoes. I have three towers, each with three plants--sprouted supermarket russets. My seed potatoes are set to arrive next week, but I think I'll save them for spring.

Medicinal herb post at Hen & Harvest. If you haven't visited this great blog, it's time you did. You'll learn some helpful things about becoming more self-sufficient and creating sustainable lifestyles--an important topic now, as many of us are trying to move away from the lifesupports of industrial agriculture. I've posted the first of two articles on growing your own medicine cabinet over there. The second will be up next month. While you're there, look around at the other helpful posts on lowering energy consumption and minimizing your carbon footprint: big words for living lightly on the earth.

Oh, and speaking of that, for our wedding anniversary (married 22 years ago, on the Fall Equinox), Bill gave me the solar stove (a Sun Oven) that I have been coveting. I made my own home-crafted version out of cardboard boxes (with an uncarded sheep's fleece for insulation) a while back, but this one is less bulky and easier to manage. I cooked chicken and rice in it this week--very tasty.

I have another important book to recommend to you: Sharon Astyk's new book, Depletion and Abundance: Life on the New Home Front. If you don't read another book this fall on the problems our families are facing, this is the one you want. Worth the price of the book: the appendix with hundreds of concrete, specific suggestions for ways to bring your own life down to earth. You can read my review of Sharon's book here. If you buy it from the review page, Story Circle will earn a few pennies from your purchase. (And yes, every penny counts!)

Writing news. I finished the copyedit of the memoir, and passed along your title comments to the editor. I like both titles, and am leaving it to the wisdom of the Press (they're pretty smart folks over there) to choose the right one. I'm working on the journal book (working title: An Extraordinary Year of Ordinary Days) and thinking just how extraordinary this year is turning out to be. Last week's financial crash alone would qualify it as a significant week; add Ike and its impact on oil, gas, and gasoline supplies, and you've got a humdinger. Coming up in two weeks: the publication of The Tale of Briar Bank (if you like dragons, I think you should read this book--if you don't, you should read it anyway!). So September is a busy month, and this week has been a busy one. How do we manage to do all the things we want to do in this life?

Reading note. The thing is, being involved with your food means revisiting a life of seasonality, with a time to plant, a time to sow, a time to harvest and a time to rest. It isn't just a song or a Bible verse; it becomes a way of life. And that's okay, because that link to nature may be the thing that we've been missing in our lives.--Sharon Astyk, Depletion and Abundance

Flowers for a queen

These blue mist flowers are among the dining favorites of the Queen butterfly, a monarch lookalike. These are growing beside my front porch, and are covered right now with a gaggle of Queens, having breakfast on this cool morning. Their lifespans are short, only a few weeks, but they're clearly enjoying what they have, while they're here. The mist flower is high on their list of places to be.

The temperature is the lowest since last May: 54 when I got up, courtesy of a blessed cold front that swooped down from the north on the heels of angry Ike. We had no effects from the storm, thank goodness--although we would have welcomed some of the rain that others got too much of. Our hearts are with our friends in Houston and Galveston who have lost so much, some losing everything. It will be months or years before life is "normal" there again. To keep up with the news from the Coastal Bend, bookmark the Houston Chronicle.

I spent the storm weekend reading the copyedited manuscript of Landscapes of the Heart, which may be in for another name change. The marketing gurus at the University of Texas Press find that title a bit "sentimental," and I agree. If I kicked and screamed, they'd probably go with that, but I've come up with something I like better: Together, Alone: A Memoir of Marriage and Place. We'll see what they think of that. A book's title is always much discussed by the marketing people, who (sometimes this is spelled out in the contract) have the last word. I learned a long time ago to think of "my" title as a "working title," subject to change when the book is in production. But don't hold your breath. This one is a full year away. The Press works on a longer production calendar than Berkley, my mystery publisher.

Garden report. We're eating green beans, southern peas, and zukes from the garden. In case southern peas are as new to you as they are to me, take a look here. We're eating them fresh (rather than the more familiar dried), steamed. These are "cream" peas, tiny and delicious--and they grow like crazy here. I'm glad to find a prolific vegetable that grows easily in this climate. I was hoping to get seed potatoes in time to plant for a fall harvest, but they're not shipping until October (big disappointment), so I think I'm out of luck. But I sprouted some from the grocery store and have planted them in potato "towers." I'll let you know what happens with that.

Writing, Reading. I'm filling out a promotion questionnaire for UT Press, working on the journal book, thinking about the next China Bayles, and planning the April tour. Oh, and I have Sharon Astyk's very fine new book, Depletion and Abundance--a hopeful book that will help us face difficult times--to review. Should keep me busy this week.

Reading note. Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come. You wait and watch and work: you don't give up.--Anne Lamott

Crockpot bread

I try not to use the oven in the summer, because it heats up the kitchen--but we still love fresh bread. This is my latest experiment, "baked" in my oval crockpot. The bread that's pictured doesn't include herbs; the recipe does. Good either way, with or without. The jar in the background is hog plum jelly, a gift from our rancher friend Dolly, who gathered the hog plums herself. Bill is still in New Mexico, and I'm afraid I'll eat this whole loaf myself, and probably half that jar of jelly. Think I'd better put the bread into the freezer.

I've spent the week catching up on emails and various small projects. Peggy and I assembled our herbal eletters for September. I wrote an article for Sharon Astyk over at Hen and Harvest--the first part of a two-part piece on growing herbs for your medicine cabinet. I'll let you know when Sharon posts it. While you're waiting for that, you can read an excerpt from Sharon's new book, Depletion and Abundance. (Hey, Sharon: I'm still waiting for my review copy. Hurry it up, okay?) Peggy and I also worked on the new eletter for our Story Circle book review website. If you're on our SCN mailing list, it'll show up in your inbox on Wednesday. Also caught up on the week's entries for my journal book.

Fall Garden report. The temperatures are cooling off, which seems to be encouraging more female blossoms on the squash. I've planted more beans, peas, carrots, lettuce, and radishes, but am saving space for later peas and spinach. The potatoes will go in as soon as the seed potatoes arrive--next week, I hope. Meanwhile, I'm watching Ike. The computer models are split, half taking the storm to LA, half to TX by late in the week. No way to tell at this point.

Several people have written to ask how Toro is adapting to being an Only Dog. Frankly, he's bored. He's a heeler, and he likes to keep an eye on things. When there's nothing to keep an eye on (when Mom is sitting in front of the computer for hours on end, say), he takes a nap on my feet, just to make sure that I don't get up and go someplace without him. Bill and I are discussing the possibility of getting a puppy to entertain Toro. We're not sure that this is the right motivation for getting another dog, but like Toro, I miss the extra doggie energy that's generated by more than one dogs. So we'll see. Still in the talking stages.

Book talks. Bill and I are driving up to Illinois for my high school class reunion (Bismarck High, 1958!) in early October. I'm doing three book talks in the area. You'll find the details here. If you're in the area, stop in and say hi.

Reading note: I truly believe that to stay home, to learn the names of things, to realize who we live among . . . then I believe a politics of place emerges where we are deeply accountable to our communities, to our neighborhoods, to our home . . . If we are not rooted deeply in place, making that commitment to dig in and stay put . . . then I think we are living a life without specificity, and then our lives become abstractions. Then we enter a place of true desolation. --Terry Tempest Williams.

Big news!

What Wildness is This (the anthology I helped to edit for Story Circle, published last year by the University of Texas Press) has received the 2008 Willa Literary Award for Creative Nonfiction, granted by Women Writing the West. This is an important award, and great recognition for the book. For all the details, reviews, and a podcast reading by some of the contributors, go here.

Here you see part of the fall garden, with cabbages in the foreground, beans and Southern peas in the background. The cabbages are lanky, having spent their childhood under the growlight. They are wearing plastic collars (cut from a Wyler's lemonade-mix carton) to defend them against cabbage worms. I learned the hard way about these critters. The bed is mulched heavily because the hot sun (it was 101 yesterday and windy, here on the back side of Gustav) pulls all the moisture out of the soil.

Some answers to your questions. The quote in the previous blog is from Stephanie's book, Yarn Harlot, her first and best, to my mind. She is so funny.

The sock yarn is Sockotta, Bluebonnet. One skein (414 yards) is enough for one pair of socks--it came with a reinforcing thread to be knitted into the heel. You don't have to make the stripes match in the two socks. (I ask you, is anybody really going to look that closely at your feet?) But if you're obsessive-compulsive and you want to make a match (I am, as you can see), you just pull off enough yarn so that you're casting on in the same "color place" on the yarn where you began the other sock. In this case, I pulled off about a yard.

No, datura isn't the same thing as moonflower, although both plants have flowers shaped like white trumpets. (If you haven't checked out Susan Tweit's blog post on this plant, drop everything and go there. The link is in the previous post. It's worth the trip.)

Gustav was not generous with us. I am sorry for all the havoc he left behind in Louisiana, but we were on the "dry side" of this hurricane (bet you didn't know that hurricanes have wet and dry sides, now, did you?), and all we're getting are north winds and hot temperatures. However, Ike and Josephine are heading this way. I'm not rooting for hurricanes, but if we don't get something out of the Gulf, there won't be any rain here until the cold fronts start coming down from the north in October. A fact of life here on the 98th Meridian.

Reading note, from the introduction to What Wildness: I rejoice in the voices of the women in this book, almost a hundred, raising our voices in celebration or warning, the words echoing off the canyon walls and the border fences, whistling through ocotillo wands. This body of work expresses what so many people most deeply feel and most clearly believe: gratitude for the gift of this place; astonishment at what each moment presents--peach jelly on the table, rain in the wind, fear in a standing wave, ghosts in the soil; an abiding love for this sere and myserious patch of earth; and the terrible understanding that we cannot wreck this place without destroying also ourselves.--Kathleen Dean Moore